Wednesday, 19 September 2012

High Times meets Doug Sipp's Blog

In our trip down memory lane of the smear campaign bloody horrible farce known as Doug Sipp's blog, a little detour is interesting. In his post "High Times in Stem Cell Land", Doug attacks Beike Biotechnology, a stem cell clinic in China. Why launch an investigative piece full frontal assault on a Chinese operation? China has now eclipsed Japan as the economic engine of Asia. As I've discussed, the patents held by Sipp's bosses are very late to the stem cell party, so the adoption of stem cells by physicians must be slowed down so they are able to cash in properly exploit the business opportunity. China is fast becoming the world's biggest potential prescription drug market cash cow and is literally next door to RIKEN, so Doug's bosses can't tolerate a China where the party is in full swing before they get their gilded invite.

In this post Doug introduces Beike biotech, a company that has treated tens of thousands of patients with stem cells. A little research on the company's web-site shows that rather than the home of the Chinese "Dr. Evil" they just secured a coveted American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) accreditation and are working with the US company Thermogenesis on state of the art cord blood banking facility (the largest on earth). They have also received ISO9001 certification for their stem cell quality control systems.When Doug is done roasting poor competitor Beike over the Japanese hibachi coals, he chronicles the hand off of Beike's ex-China holdings to "Alex" Moffet and Steve Marshank. Here Doug moves into full smear investigative mode, making the highlight of the post and it's title Marshank's long ago pot bust. Doug brings up a large load of the wacky weed that was intercepted by the US DEA and that was part of the then entrepreneurial Marshank's herbal operation. In all lack of fairness, after skewering Marshank (and his guilt by association business partner Moffet), Doug does admit that the case was thrown out. However, in true believer Sipp style, Doug leaves out some rather important details, as they would damage Doug's thesis libel.

In actual fact, the case against Marshank was thrown out in spectacular fashion. Doug likes the LA Times as they have published a few of his stem cell rags investigations on various targets of his latest professional hit jobs writings, but here the facts as laid out in the Times kills Sipp's credibility.

Calling it a "shocking tale" of deception and government misconduct, a federal judge threw out a major indictment Tuesday against an accused drug dealer whose eccentric Los Angeles drug lawyer turned against him and pressured him into becoming an informant...

Patel found that the lawyer stood to profit if Marshank were convicted and his assets seized. The judge concluded that Minkin both supplied information used to indict his client in July, 1990, and persuaded other clients to turn against Marshank.

By using his lawyer to ensnare Marshank, Patel said, the prosecutors showed an "utter disregard for the government's ethical obligations." In throwing out the charges, Patel held that the government violated Marshank's 5th Amendment right to due process and his Sixth Amendment right to a lawyer.

Patel also invoked her "supervisory power" over federal prosecutors and held that the case had to be thrown out to "preserve judicial integrity and to deter future government misconduct."

"Judicial integrity is severly threatened when professional ethical and court rules such as those involved here are flouted by the government," Patel wrote.

So while Doug paints a picture of the new Beike owners being pot smuggling scum businessmen and getting off on a technicality abuse of justice, the truth is rather far from it. The case was such an example of blatant prosecutorial misconduct that it's actually been featured in quite a few books:

It's also featured as an abuse of process case in legal tomes such as "Constitutional Law":

I seem to remember that a certain American President had something to do with being a Constitutional Law scholar...More importantly, you Americans have basically legalized wacky backy and Marshank was accused of distributing the stuff in California (now the most high pot friendly of the US states). This is like going after an old man for being a bootlegger during the American prohibition era. In fact Marshank's miscarriage of justice is featured in this book:

You have to notice the by-line, "An Adult Approach to Drug Policies in the 21st Century". If only a certain ex-trucker adopted an adult approach to blogging...